hdiutil only seems to work for iso/dmg images. On ubuntu the block file can easily be mounted with

mount -o loop filename mountpoint

Background: I used vdfuse (http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=33355&start=0) to mount virtual disk files (e.g. vhd). vdfuse itself works fine and the partitions contained in the virtual disc appear as block files on the mount point.

Just in case anyone gets stuck here... this command will give you something like /dev/disk1. You can run hdiutil mount /dev/disk1 to actually see the files inside. It will print out the location of the mount point, something like /Volumes/Untitled
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SamJan 30 '12 at 19:55

thanks, this would be usually the way to go. however this would require /my/mountpoint/Partition1 to be a block device... It the same reason you cannot mount an iso by mount /path/to/iso /path/to/mountpoint
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janmAug 26 '10 at 18:26

1

Why not just make a memory-disk device that's file backed? Off the top of my head I think it's hdid /my/file and it will return a block device name.
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Chris S♦Aug 26 '10 at 20:18